The present invention relates to a heterogenic rhenium containing catalyst suited particularly to the metathetic reactions of hydrocarbons.
Such a heterogenic catalyst generally contains an inorganic oxide support with a rhenium compound bound onto its surface. The terms metathesis, disproportionation or dismutation are used to indicate a catalytic reaction in which asymmetric olefinic molecules are converted into new olefins having a hydrocarbon chain longer or shorter than that of the precursor olefin. Thus, propene for instance reacts at the presence of said catalysts to yield ethene and butene. Further, two different kinds of olefinic molecules can react in a metathetic manner exemplified by the reaction of ethene and 2-butene yielding propene. Other areas of application of metathetic catalysts are, e.g., disproportionation by ring opening and the utilization of olefins having a carbon number of less than 10 and more than 20 that result from the oligomerization of ethene by way of isomerizing them first into i-olefins and then allowing them to react mutually at the presence of a metathetic catalyst. Another utilization method of said olefins is to allow them to react after isomerization with ethene at the presence of a metathetic catalyst to produce odd-carbon .alpha.-olefins, from which fractions suitable for raw materials of lubricants can be separated by way of fractionization.